Serene 86 year old looking to exchange insightful ideas and remembrances.

Sunday, October 07, 2018

Oct. 3, 1961 ... We become a family of 5

You see the little baby that I'm holding in this Christmas photo? That's our third child … little Jody born on Oct. 3rd 1961. Mark is the inquisitive one of the floor (our first child and a normal birth, long but uneventful). Matt was a very different story … we almost didn't make it to the hospital before he was born and the cab driver kept yelling "Hold on". The hospital staff literally had no time to prep me before he "popped out". And then there was Jody !

Hers was a very different story and I relived it this past week when her birthday came around. My pregnancy seemed normal until, at about 32 weeks, I started to bleed and we called the doctor. He advised me to go to the ER immediately and they, in turn, put me in the hospital for observation. That decision was probably what saved our lives. I was having a placenta previa birth (the placenta is actually being "born" before the baby and leaves the unborn nothing to feed on) and in those years that was almost always fatal .

Everything was happening very fast but I do remember my husband kissing my cheek, telling me to "keep my chin up" and then promptly passing out. For a minute the OR crew was flustered but they left him there on the floor for the nurses to handle and proceeded to rush me to the operating room where they performed an immediate caesarian and our little Jody was born. She weighed less than 5 lbs and had to stay in the hospital for 10 days but she and I are lucky to be alive.

I remember that time so clearly and, even though that was 57 years ago it seems like yesterday in many ways. She was a beautiful baby and is a beautiful woman. (Hubby Brian looking good too!)

Our friend and local doctor denied me the privilege of participating in 1970 at our eldest sons birth. I don't want any squeamish father to be passing our in my delivery room" he told me. I always though he was exaggerating. Maybe not...:)